THE COMITY OF SPIES

CHICAGO TRIBUNE

The arrest of a Navy intelligence analyst on charges of spying on the United States for Israel will probably not go down in the annals of great espionage cases. But it certainly strains the special relationship that has existed between the intelligence agencies of the two countries.

The Israeli government recognizes the damage that might have been done. It has not denied that civilian analyst Johnathan Jay Pollard sold classified code information to agents of Israel. But it has emphatically asserted that such an operation would contradict Israeli policy of refraining from espionage against the United States and promised a thorough investigation.

Intelligence gathering is a dark and wary game, and even the closest allies engage in fierce competition. The unwritten rules do not require any commitment to stay completely out of one another`s way nor to share all the take, but they have probably restrained such flat-out operations as recruiting agents within an ally`s intelligence services.

The secret relationship between Israeli and U.S. intelligence has probably seen better days, just as the public relationship has. But despite the divergence of views about the best way to achieve Mideast peace and other matters, there has been a general agreement to operate by more civilized standards of behavior than those that ordinarily prevail among nations when they work in the shadows of intrigue.

The fact that the United States has chosen to bring charges against Mr. Pollard out into the open suggests that the administration feels it needs to warn Israel that its activities have gone beyond the limits of U.S. tolerance. By responding to this warning the way that it did, Israel clearly wants to re- establish the comity of spying that had existed. And that is surely a better way of proceeding than to allow mutual suspicion to grow where it grows best, in the dark.